The Partner
by jelenamichel
Summary: He tightens his arms around her and drops his head lower, suddenly craving her support like air. He thinks this must be what it feels like to have, well, a partner. The non-professional kind, that is.


**A/N: I didn't plan this. I started with no destination in mind and just kind of followed where it took me. I'm sort of surprised by where I ended up.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

* * *

><p>Even after six years, she still has the ability to surprise him.<p>

He and Ziva are leaving for the night with plans to head home to their respective houses and do whatever it is they do in the hours between "Heading home, boss," and "Morning, boss". He's got a night of laundry folding and apartment cleaning planned, and as for her? Normally he'd be all over that like Nancy Drew. But tonight he's not biting.

He's tired. So tired. He didn't sleep the night before after a phone call from his dad had him obsessing over doctors and tests and stages and _too young_. The obsession continued throughout the day, and frankly his preoccupation has taken him by surprise. He's devoted more thought to his namesake in the last 18 hours than he has in the last 18 years.

Ziva spent the day shooting him looks over her desk that started off south of mildly curious and ended up well north of quiet worry. She's resisted broaching the subject with him, and he's allowed himself to believe that's because she senses his need for space. But he's felt her there all day, just hovering on the fringes of his mood and ready to step in if he gave her the signal.

The signal goes out without his knowledge as they step into the elevator at the end of the day. He lets the smile he's been wearing like a shield all day drop by just a millimeter, but it's enough. He doesn't know how she sees it—_is she even looking at him?_—but one second they're heading towards the foyer, and the next they're hovering between floors. Ziva turns from the emergency brake to look at him as the lights go out and cloaks them with privacy. For some reason he thinks that she's about to lay into him. Tell him to leave his shit at home and get over it.

Instead, she hugs him.

The thing is, they don't touch. Not really. They spend most of their lives circling each other from arm's length. Every now and then the desire to leave marks on the other becomes too strong to resist, and they'll stumble or smash against each other. But it's fleeting. They don't indulge. They don't do…this.

He's stunned into stillness by the feeling of warm, soft Ziva against him. By the close-up smell of her hair and skin. He expects the touch to be another momentary flirtation with intimacy before they redraw their professional boundaries. But Ziva doesn't let go. She continues to hug him until his body relaxes and sags into hers and his arms finally return the embrace.

_This is what he's needed all day._

"How do you know?" he asks. Because, seriously, how does she know? Is she tapping his cell phone?

She shakes her head against him. "I _don't_ know."

And then he realizes. Of course she doesn't _know_. All she knows is that he's dealing with something and that he needs help. He tightens his arms around her and drops his head lower, suddenly craving the support like air. He thinks this must be what it feels like to have, well, a _partner_. The non-professional kind, that is.

"Dad's sick." Her breathing remains strong and steady. It loosens his tongue. "He's having a biopsy tomorrow to confirm."

Strong hands bunch his shirt and keep him upright. "Where is he?"

"New York."

"Are you going?"

"No."

She squeezes him and then lets go, leaving him cold. He wants to chase after her (_Please, just a few more minutes_), but now her hands are pressing into his chest. She looks up at him not with sympathy, but understanding.

_How does she know?_

"I am going to come to your place tonight," she tells him.

_How does she know?_

"No, it's—"

"I will bring dinner."

He smirks. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, huh?"

She flashes the Mona Lisa smile and her eyes flick deliberately lower. "No, I think that is aiming a little high."

The joke is needed. Her hands fall from his chest as soon as he favors her with a smile, and she reaches for the emergency brake.

Pause button off. Life resumes. Intimacy is packed away until the next disaster.

_What he wouldn't give for a_ _partner_.

A small, beaten-down voice inside him is heard only because he's too tired and sad and reflective to block it. _Well_, it says, _you probably could have a _partner_ if—_

He rubs his hand over his mouth as he mentally gags the voice. He's too scared of Gibbs, too scared of her, too scared of himself to let it speak. He'll make do with once-in-a-decade hugs, fleeting touches and weighted looks until he finds it too painful to stand or breathe alone.

_He expects this will only be another month or two._

He wonders if she feels like this too, or if he's overestimating the amount of space he takes up in her thoughts. Maybe the small, beaten-down voice inside him is wrong. Maybe he _couldn't_ have a partner, even if…

The harsh ding of the elevator spurs Ziva into forward motion, but he barely lifts his eyes from the glowing yellow _G_ that announces their floor. The thought that he might not have his pseudo partner after all, or his father for much longer, causes panic to rise in his chest. _Everybody's leaving me…_

He suddenly feels frozen to the spot.

"Tony?"

His eyes find her again. One of the elevator doors bumps into her shoulder as she stands between them, and she shoots it a filthy look that sends it sliding back into the wall. With the enemy contained, she turns eyes so compassionate and comforting on him that he finds it hard not to collapse against her shoulder and cry.

_God, he wants a partner so badly._

"Hm?" he manages.

She watches him quietly for a moment before reaching back to him and closing a small, warm hand around his wrist. Her eyes beckon him to follow her, and he lets her steer him out of the elevator and through the foyer of the building.

"You should go," she tells him when they reach the boundaries of the parking lot.

He feels the sting of dismissal until he realizes she's talking about going to Senior. The sting turns to nausea. "It would be bad."

"Tony." Admonishing, but only a little. She's going easy on him.

"Gibbs wouldn't let—"

"Yes, he would," she counters.

He contemplates this as they walk to their cars. He knows she's right, but he liked having someone else to blame for his family's estrangement. The thought triggers in intense stab of guilt within him and he berates himself for his callousness. He hopes to God that his own kids won't end up concocting reasons to avoid visiting him. To be neglected and isolated by his flesh and blood when he needs them most would be terrifying.

_Would _she_ make the trip to see him?_

His eyes blur as they pause by the trunk of his car, and she looks up at him as if to say something. But when she opens her mouth, it's his thick voice that breaks the silence.

"Do you ever feel like you just need a partner?"

She gives him a look that makes his chest ache and his small, beaten-down voice prepare for a speech. But before she surrenders them both to intimacy they won't be able to recover from, she averts her gaze like a good little agent and takes half a step back. "Yes." Her tone is painfully careful.

He swallows down the thorns catching in his throat. "How do you deal with it?"

Her eyes rest on the safety of his left shoulder as her silence drags. He waits it out in the hope that she'll provide advice he'll be able to live by. But the slight crease between her eyebrows and the tension in her lips tells him she's as tortured by the mess as he is.

For a moment he considers a future spent by her side, but from a distance of six feet. Moving in tandem and in the same direction, but never, ever, ever touching. Would that be the worst kind of torture, or the only blessing in life to count on?

He is suddenly woozy from the agony of the thought, and reaches out to steady himself against the car. Ziva's eyes lift to his, and the resignation in her expression tells him she's given up whatever internal war she's been fighting. One shoulder lifts and her smile turns self-deprecating. The rarity of the expression on her usually proud and controlled face is what makes him believe the sincerity of her reply.

"I take things out on you."

He blinks at her as he turns her statement around in his head and tries to assign meaning to it. He rejects his first interpretation that she is not concerned with protecting their relationship when he hits on a notion that makes his body flush with equal parts hope and fear.

_She's already picked her partner. Now she's waiting for the right time to nudge him to pick her back._

It's the second surprise she's served him that evening. One that sends the pieces of their relationship that he thought he'd put into place scattering in a hundred directions. It's going to take him years to sort them all out again.

She gives him a self-aware smile that both confirms his suspicions and warns him against forcing further discussion on the topic. She squeezes his hand again before turning to stride across three empty spaces to her car. He watches her without moving, without thinking. Perhaps even without breathing.

_He already has a partner._

"I will need a half hour to pick up things for dinner," she calls back to him over her shoulder. "Perhaps you could use that time to make some travel arrangements."

"Yeah," he hears himself say. Because she's right. This isn't the time to hang on to decades-old hurt. He needs to be the bigger man. "Thank you, Ziva."

She gives him a final, confident wink before sliding behind the wheel of her Mini and rolling out of the lot. He watches her taillights until she turns a corner, and it's only then that he feels himself breathe again.

_Is she as scared of Gibbs and him and herself as Tony is? _

No. It wasn't fear he saw in her face. He thinks it was caution. It wasn't doubt or speculation, but patience and awareness that they're not quite ready for this intimacy, but they will be. It's another thing she's right about tonight, and he can't believe she's devoted enough honest thought to their relationship to be sure about how it should play out.

Even after six years, his partner still has the ability to surprise him.


End file.
